Global Mental Health | Brown University School of Public Health

True Self Program

The “True Self Program” focuses on developing and testing a stigma-reduction, gender-affirmative mobile health (mHealth) program to engage Chinese transgender women (TW) in HIV prevention by promoting their mental and sexual health, HIV self-testing, and the use of HIV and gender-related community and medical resources.

Study PI: Shufang Sun, PhD

Brown University School of Public Health

Funded by the National Institutes of Health (1R01TW012677-01A1)

The Significance

Chinese TW are at three times higher risk of HIV infection than their cisgender men who have sex with men (MSM) peers, yet there’s no targeted support for their specific needs.

They face intense stigma and gender-related stress, which negatively impacts their mental and sexual health, leading to higher HIV risk and low engagement with prevention services.

There’s a real need for a supportive, gender-affirmative approach to help them navigate these challenges.

Group therapy, psychotherapy, psychology session. Community meeting, discuss, talk about mental health, share problems, disorder, people help each other, support. Flat isolated illustration on white

Our Work So Far

Building on the Gender Minority Stress framework and Transgender Resilience Intervention Model, and informed by our team’s previous mHealth work in HIV-related mental and behavioral health, we propose to develop “True Self”, a mobile app-based intervention led by TW peer counselors.

Our aim involves interviewing TW and stakeholders to understand their needs and preferences, piloting the program, and assessing its impact with TW through a randomized controlled trial.

This initiative aims to refine the program and build capacity for future research and implementation.